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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23319904">send Death waltz</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hunter X Hunter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Blood and Injury, Force Soulmates, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Soulmates, Soulmates Marks, Suicide Attempt, Yorkshin City | Yorknew City Arc (Hunter X Hunter), chrollo kinda likes him tho, kinda sweet chrollo, sad kurapika</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 15:47:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,562</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23319904</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It was marked on his skin. He couldn't run away from it. It was marked on his own skin - from his first breath and surely until his last. It was marked on his skin - the numbers were smooth, thin, graceful - they were his sweet tragedy.</p><p>0404666.</p><p>They had no faces. They were just numbers – they were just ideas, images imagined enough by his own mind to be too blurry features that Kurapika really couldn't see.</p><p>One day, he sees him - so close, that he only has to stretch his fingers to touch his skin. But if Kurapika manages to touch him, it's only because he wants to kill him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kuroro Lucifer | Chrollo Lucifer/Kurapika</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>209</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>send Death waltz</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hello guys!! </p><p>just a precision: i changed the story of the arc a bit. chrollo and kurapika met the 3 September during the big attack/farewells for Uvo. </p><p>I hope you will enjoy the fic:)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was marked on his skin. He couldn't run away from it. It was marked on his own skin - from his first breath and surely until his last. It was marked on his skin - the numbers were smooth, thin, graceful - they were his sweet tragedy.</p><p><br/>
<em>0404666</em>.</p><p><br/>
They had no faces. They were just numbers – they were just ideas, images imagined enough by his own mind to be too blurry features that Kurapika really couldn't see.</p><p><br/>
One day, he sees him - so close, that he only has to stretch his fingers to touch his skin. But if Kurapika manages to touch him, it's only because he wants to kill him.</p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>Kurapika was eleven when Pairo told him that he was jealous of his seven black numbers on his left wrist. Pairo says that Kurapika is lucky because he managed to be born in the same universe as the one intended for him. Pairo tells Kurapika that this is a very rare phenomenon.</p><p><br/>
And Kurapika answers:</p><p><br/>
- I know. Sometimes, I can feel it.</p><p><br/>
Sometimes his left wrist burns him very hard. So Kurapika wonders what <em>they</em> are doing so far - sometimes Kurapika feels like his wrist is on fire. Then Kurapika begins to think of <em>them</em> with his ideas which are only lies; with a portrait made of his own expectations - his own hopes.</p><p><br/>
Pairo asks him if Kurapika has an idea how <em>they</em> can look like and what kind of person <em>they</em> can be. Kurapika doesn't know - he just only thinks about it a lot. Everyday of its existence. Kurapika says:</p><p><br/>
- I do not know. But I trust the Universe.</p><p><br/>
<em>I trust the Stars.</em>
</p><p><br/>
Kurapika says:</p><p><br/>
- I hope <em>they</em> like to read. That way we can discuss books together. I hope they are someone virtuous, too. I hope this is a person of their words.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika adds:</p><p><br/>
- I'm already very lucky that they exist, you know. I hope it's not too selfish on me to hope to meet them. Maybe someday. Pairo, do you think this is asking too much of the Gods?</p><p><br/>
Pairo smiles.</p><p><br/>
- You have to trust the Universe and the Stars.</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>In the evenings, his mother comes to tuck him in. She strokes his blond hair and she does lots of things to help him fall asleep. She has blue eyes that shine with Love - her thin, white fingers sometimes slide against her son's pink cheeks, and she whispers lots of tender words.</p><p>Kurapika says, in his sleepy childish voice:</p><p><br/>
- My wrist hurt a lot today. I hope everything’s fine with <em>t</em><em>hem</em>.</p><p><br/>
Her mother’s caresses stop. She smiles tenderly. She sees, from the corner of her bright eyes, her son's left wrist, and the seven figures still as black: always as marked in his skin. Kurapika's skin in this part of his body is less white than it normally should be - a little too red.</p><p><br/>
The caresses slide on his left wrist. Kurapika doesn't say anything - sometimes his eyelids flutter and his gray eyes faint in fatigue. With her long nails, her mother traces the numbers on his skin. She whispers, as if it were a secret:</p><p><br/>
- You're a lucky boy, Kurapika. These precious numbers are not given to everyone. So my son...</p><p><br/>
Her fingers go up to his blond hair. She still whispers.</p><p><br/>
- Promise me something.</p><p><br/>
The child's gray eyes are open - and they only look at the mother's pink mouth. He waits for his words - he waits for his promise.</p><p><br/>
The mother smiles tenderly.</p><p><br/>
- Promise me to take care of them. When you finally see them, promise me not to let them go.</p><p><br/>
Go. <em>Pass away.</em></p><p><br/>
The child's eyes tilt from his mother's figure to his wrist. He looks at them forbidden - he thinks of them as something fragile: like something divine.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika is twelve when he begins to be afraid of the seven figures written on his skin, and in his skin and in his soul. It’s something divine and precious: he’s twelve, and he shouldn’t spoil it. He’s twelve years old, with child's arms: and he has to protect them.</p><p><br/>
And he doesn't even know their name: he doesn't know their face, nor the way they can breathe. He doesn't know anything - maybe the numbers 0404666 mean something about their soul, about their body, about their heart - but Kurapika can't know it, since he doesn't know them.</p><p><br/>
They’re just a stranger - a stranger who shares the same numbers on his left wrist, the same black anchor in his skin, the same body, the same heart, the same soul and Kurapika knows nothing about this stranger who he must protect.</p><p><br/>
But Kurapika will do it.</p><p><br/>
- I promise you.</p><p><br/>
His mother smiles. Stroking his blond hair, and kissing his forehead, she whispers:</p><p><br/>
-  My brave boy...</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p><br/>
Kurapika was thirteen when he started reading a lot of books about people who share the same numbers on their bodies. The books call them <em>soulmates</em>. Kurapika likes this word, and he hopes his <em>soulmate</em> likes it too.</p><p><br/>
The books speak a lot - they even use words that Kurapika doesn't understand. They tell a lot of legends, and myths, and uncertain stories - they explain, almost every time, that there are only the favorites of the Gods who can hope to have numbers on their skin. They say that the two individuals must exist at same time, and in the same universe, and at the same time. These are three conditions that are rarely complete, because Fate is finicky. Thus, there are almost no soulmates grazing their land. Because sometimes one dies too soon for the other to be able to graze the universe with his blackened skin: he just was born right after the other died. It is a vicious circle: a circle established so that Death and Life can lead their dance.</p><p><br/>
So Kurapika caresses, with his adolescent fingers, his fingers still white, and his nails which have not yet been planted in hatred, he caresses them: tenderly, gently and he thinks, strong enough for his soulmate may perhaps hear it:</p><p><br/>
- I'm really lucky.</p><p><br/>
So Kurapika continues to read a lot about soulmates. He gets all the words he can read. Sometimes, he doesn't understand them - he doesn't know them. Several books use the word <em>Nen</em> while Kurapika is still stuck in ignorance of the innocence of his young age.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika learns a lot - even if he doesn't understand everything. This is a complicated and complex phenomenon - between rumors and reality, he cannot decide everything. There are very few cases, soulmates, and thus, very little specific information that can really satisfy him.</p><p><br/>
Apparently, <em>They</em> share a soul twin to his – <em>They</em> are and <em>They</em> have half what he needs. But Kurapika does not yet know what he is lacking: what is missing. He seeks, but he does not find. Kurapika is satisfied with his small existence: he demands nothing more, and nothing less. But They have something to give him - something that has the power to make his whole existence complete.</p><p><br/>
But Kurapika is too young to understand - he is only thirteen years old and his eyes have not yet been plunged into the red of blood.</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>In the evenings, his mother comes to tuck him in. It is soothing: the mother is sweet and the mother is full of Love. It shows in her blue eyes: in her tender gestures, and in her caresses. You can see it in the words she says when she tries to reassure her son.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika is too anxious to be able to sleep. He doesn't close his eyes. His mother's hands continue to run through his blond hair. She doesn't ask for anything. She is waiting.<br/>
She is waiting for her son to speak. She knows he's going to speak - because his gray eyes are frowning in a concern that is unlike him. The concern doesn’t suit Kurapika's face. His fine features are deformed in a pout that makes his thin lips trembling.</p><p><br/>
He murmurs, as if he were afraid to say it:</p><p><br/>
- I feel bad, Mother.</p><p>He serves his fists - very hard. His gray eyes are shaken in the water that rises to his eyelids.</p><p><br/>
- I read a lot today. I read something that scares me.</p><p><br/>
She said nothing. She caresses, with her thumb, a tear that slides on her son's cheek. Kurapika let him run away from his gray eyes.</p><p><br/>
His fists are so strong that his body trembles a little. Her mother also whispers a few words: she tries to chase away the little red that begins to slip into her child's eyes.</p><p><br/>
- If <em>they </em>die, then I die too. If I die, then <em>they</em> die too. Did you know that?</p><p><br/>
His voice trembles a lot as her mother nods. She continues to catch the escaping tears with her fine fingers.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika is very shaky. His voice creaks when he says - when he even spits:</p><p><br/>
- It isn’t <em>fair</em>.</p><p><br/>
Because his soul was connected with another - and that soul, he had no idea what it could be like. Kurapika ignored its master, and its history, and its kindness, and its cruelty. But this soul, whose existence he was unaware of, had his life in its hands. So it was not fair. His body was no longer really his: his heartbeat depended on someone else's. So it wasn’t fair. Kurapika had his life in the hands of another: and the other had his life in his hands.</p><p><br/>
Tomorrow Kurapika could die. And his body will not be the only one to pass out - his soul will not be the only one to escape. It was not fair because if one day, Kurapika falls, he is too good to want to drag someone else into his fall.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika had been too lucky : then, it was obvious that the mark on his wrist must have brought him some misfortunes.</p><p><br/>
.</p><p> </p><p>Gon is the first one to notice the numbers on his skin.</p><p><br/>
They're locked in the Tower room - and they still have 28 hours before they can get out and finish the Hunter exam. Gon is young, and he doesn't know much: but his big brown eyes wander everywhere. So when Kurapika’s sleeve goes up a little towards his elbow, by accident and by carelessness, there’s no shortage of numbers for the child.</p><p><br/>
- Kurapika! Do you have a tattoo?</p><p><br/>
All eyes are on him - on his wrist. Kurapika lowers his sleeve, but it's too late: Kirua lets out a noise of surprise, and he can feel Léorio’s black eyes burning his neck.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika knows he can't lie - he doesn't want to lie. Kirua and Léolio have already understood. And Kurapika isn't trying to hide the numbers on his wrist - maybe he got tired of it over time. Maybe Death had become too embedded in their daily life for them to think about the miracles of Life.</p><p><br/>
- No, I don’t, Gon.</p><p><br/>
So Kurapika explains the concept of soulmates to him - and the child has stars in his eyes. Gon starts looking at his body to see if he too has numbers on his skin, but there is nothing. So Gon asks a lot of questions like <em>you know who it is do you have already met them they are the love of your life right can you read their mind can you</em> but Kirua kicks his head, because <em>let Kurapika talk, you fool!</em></p><p><br/>
So Kurpika says that he doesn't know who <em>they</em> are, and that he has no idea. He says he can't read their mind, but sometimes his brand burns him, a lot, a lot. He says he doesn't really know why, but he imagines it is because <em>they</em> are in a complicated situation. Kurapika says that sometimes he can't sleep - he can't even close his eyes. And he once read, <em>when I was your age, Gon</em>, that it was because <em>they</em> were thinking about him. But he doesn't know if this is true - because these are just stories.</p><p><br/>
He says if he dies, <em>they</em> will die. And if <em>they</em> die, he will die.</p><p><br/>
Gon says it's not fair - Kurapika doesn't say it, but he also thinks it very strongly.</p><p><br/>
So Kurapika just answers him that it is so - that in a way that he does not understand very well and that he cannot see, his soul is linked to that of the Others. Gon does not understand - he asks if there is a wire that connects them. Kurapika says no - he says:</p><p><br/>
- It's an extension of my soul. <em>They</em> are my body and my heart. My body is theirs. My heart is theirs. My soul is theirs. And vice versa. I do not know how it is possible, but it is so.</p><p><br/>
<em>It’s the Universe and the Stars that connect us.</em>
</p><p><br/>
Léorio glides, air of nothing and too enthusiastic for that to be innocent:</p><p><br/>
- You could make yourself a bunch of money with this story. There are so few cases that researchers are prepared to deposit billions for…</p><p><br/>
Kurapika cuts him off, a little more sharply than he really would have liked:</p><p><br/>
- I'm not a laboratory rat.</p><p>Léorio says nothing - only:</p><p><br/>
- Yeah. Sorry.</p><p><br/>
They no longer speak.</p><p><br/>
On his left wrist, the figures burn his skin - but Kurapika got used to it. For seventeen years, his skin has never stopped being reddened by Fate and by <em>them</em> and by worry. Kurapika was so worried about <em>them</em> and himself, he thought at least a thousand times if it was today that he was going to die, then he forgot how to do it.</p><p><br/>
So the mark is burning its skin but Kurapika has forgotten how to worry.</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>After Hunter’s exam is over, Gon asks Kurapika if he’s going to pick up his <em>soulmate</em> - when the child says that word, he always has stars in his eyes.</p><p><br/>
But Kurapika makes them disappear when he says no, and it will take a long, long time before he goes looking for them. In his mind, and in his heart, the word <em>revenge</em> is branded with a hot iron - <em>revenge</em> is associated with the word <em>duty</em>.</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>September 3</em>
</p><p><br/>
Behind the big white door, a force whose Kurapika doesn’t know about calls him. His wrist burns him very hard: but all of Kurapika's attention is found on the chain around his fingers - it takes it off, it jostles, it shouts words at him that he doesn't understand.</p><p><br/>
His gray eyes stared at the door as if it were behind all the treasures of the world. He advances: his heart beats in his mind, in his ears and in his temples and in his hands - which are not yet tinged with blood.</p><p><br/>
When he opens it, everything he can see is red – because of his own eyes’s color and his own rage.</p><p><br/>
His eyes are surely red because there is anger in the pupils of the man in front of him when he meets his gaze. And the bitterness in his black eyes turns to hatred when he puts his eyes on Kurapika's right hand - on this chain that steals the little innocence he has left.</p><p><br/>
The man steps forward - in his suit, he seems too delicate to have his hands bathed in blood. His features are also soft: they are fine, and his large eyes are tender coldness - they are gray, or maybe black, or maybe both. Kurapika doesn't know because his own hatred is blinding him - since even though this man is of charismatic beauty, his hands have ripped the eyes of his clan.</p><p><br/>
So the man is rather handsome, for an assassin - for a thief. But he is a thief: he has ripped out of his life all the laughs he could hear, all the sweet words of his mother, all the games of Pairo, and all the caresses of his mother in his hair.</p><p><br/>
He was an assassin who killed all of his memory and all of his house and all of his family and all of his life - and most of all, all of his innocence.</p><p><br/>
So when Kurapika meets his gaze, he cannot help but see the corpses of his clan lying in the bloodbath that his house has become. He can't help but remember their holes in their faces: their missing eyes. They had become bodies that couldn't find rest, because part of them had been stolen from them - their lives, their eyes.</p><p><br/>
So Kurapika fights without realizing it. His gaze burns his eyes and his wrist is on fire, but hatred blinds him - so he doesn't notice it. The blackened figures on his skin become just another part of his body agitated by rage.</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p>Kurapika is going to die.</p><p><br/>
He knows it. He knows it because the man is way too strong - and because Hisoka warned him, so it may have been his fault. But Kurapika couldn't help it: between the screams from the outside, the blood on the walls, the explosions and the machine-gun fire of this evening, his mind had evaporated in hatred - his mind had spun between the fingers of patience and reflection.</p><p><br/>
When Kurapika takes off his tabard suit, he can no longer hear his boss's phone calls and he cannot remember his other duty - that of bodyguard, that of protecting his boss. Neon no longer exists: there is only hatred, there are only the corpses that remain - in his mind and in his nightmares.<br/>
But he won’ no longer have nightmare. Kurapika is going to die.</p><p><br/>
He knows it when the assassin managed to send him waltzing against a wall - under his force, under his blow, under the anger of the man with the green bandage and bloody hands.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika knows that he is going to die when his back touches the cold tiling of the room and his red eyes can no longer stay open. Between his eyelids that open and close, he can see the assassin of his clan moving towards him. And he tells him things - but Kurapika can't hear them. Even if he could, he wouldn't have had the strength to hear his voice and the insults that the assassin can let slip.</p><p><br/>
After all, Kurapika deserved it: his hands were no longer white. They never will be again.</p><p><br/>
The man is getting closer. Death is coming. Kurapika thinks of <em>them</em> and how sorry he is for ruining their life - for finishing it without telling <em>them</em>. Without really wanting it, Kurapika's hands are a bloodbath. So, <em>I'm sorry, soulmate - we're going to die</em>.</p><p><br/>
Hisoka was right - to confront the head of the brigade was madness. But Kurapika had to: since as soon as his family stopped breathing, madness had only become a means of keeping his rage alive. Madness was a nice word: if it were to be a color, it would surely be red - red like his eyes, and now like his hands.<br/>
The man comes to his feet - and Kurapika sees his lips move, very much. His face is writhing in anger, too: but it's a calm anger, as if he had understood why Kurapika had killed one of his own. The man had understood, perhaps since he met the youngest's bloody gaze.</p><p><br/>
The man understood, and that is perhaps why he takes the time to look at him. The assassin may want to remember the face he is going to kill - the suppleness of his blond hair, the hatred of his gaze and the way his whole frail body was bloodied, because of his hand and his blows and his strength and his power. He looks at his hands: especially his hands, and the chain that kills others and Kurapika's innocence - at the same time, every time it surrounds a body.</p><p><br/>
The assassin says:</p><p><br/>
- You fought honorably. You inspire respect.</p><p><br/>
<em>We are going to die.</em>
</p><p><br/>
Kurapika knows this - the leader takes out his book and even if Kurapika has understood his strengths and weaknesses and his powers, he will not be able to escape his encounter with Death.</p><p><br/>
<em>We are going to die.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>Kurapika does not die.</p><p><br/>
When the man’s eyes land on his left wrist, Destiny ultimately plays in his favor - in incredible tragic irony. Kurapika does not see his discomfort directly: because the pain in his whole body prevents him from keeping his eyes open.</p><p><br/>
He can feel the man crouching near him - and maybe he'll slit his throat with his own hands. But instead, with his cold fingers, the assassin takes his wrist between his hands. Kurapika's clothes, cut into a thousand pieces, reveal his skin - and the seven figures that blacken his body.<br/>
When Kurapika opens his eyes, just over ten seconds: when Kurapika has time to analyze the situation, to analyze the thing that holds the interest of the person he hates, Kurapika understands.</p><p><br/>
His heart misses a beat - to start again in an explosion of panic and anguish. Kurapika understands, because he can see the brigade leader looking at him differently - there is something shining in his black and gray eyes, and that is no longer anger. It’s something more twisted.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika knows - he has not yet looked at the wrist of the one who will cause his loss, but he knows. He feels it - the Stars and the Universe tell him: they cry words in his ears that Kurapika does not want to understand. But Kurapika is forced to understand, when his red gaze slips on the left wrist of his <em>soulmate</em>.</p><p><br/>
<em>0404666</em>.</p><p><br/>
.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>April 4, 1994</em>
</p><p><br/>
<em>Chrollo Lucilfer</em> is nine years old when excruciating pain burns his entire left wrist. In his child's voice, he screams - he screams so loudly, that the birds around him fly away so that he can escape his pain. He falls to his knees and with his right hand, he serves his left wrist hard: as if he wanted to strangle the pain that he cannot see but that he can feel in a too strong way.</p><p><br/>
<em>Chrollo Lucilfer</em> is nine years old when he thinks he's going to die. He doesn't know why he is going to die, but he knows that the pain on his left wrist is too great for him to be able to breathe - his breath is blocked inside his throat and the air is inaccessible to his lungs.</p><p> <br/>
<em>Chrollo Lucilfer</em> is nine years old when the skin on his left wrist seems to break into a thousand pieces. A thorn that he cannot see sinks into all his flesh - it is so sharp, and so long, and so strong, that he feels it touch his bone. Maybe it'll pierce one of the veins, and that's how <em>Chrollo Lucilfer</em> will die.</p><p><br/>
<em>Chrollo Lucilfer</em> is nine years old when the pain stops. He has tears running down his cheeks - and he hadn't cried for a long time. He was six years old when he thought he could never cry again.</p><p><br/>
But the Stars and the Universe showed him that he was wrong.</p><p><br/>
<em>Chrollo Lucilfer</em> was nine years old when seven digits were marked on his skin - so strong, so deep, that the mark became an integral part of his skin and his body. And also of his soul, but Chrollo Lucilfer is nine years old and he doesn't know it yet.</p><p><br/>
0404666.</p><p><br/>
On the other side of the earth, Kurapika Kuruta utters his first cry.</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>Kurapika is eighteen when he asks Hisoka to kill him.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika talks a lot, a lot - he doesn't speak, he cries. Hisoka is sitting on the horse in the abandoned amusement park carousel and his yellow eyes, slightly narrowed, look at him: Kurapika has collapsed on his knees and he is crying. A few blond locks come to stick to his wet and bloody cheeks.</p><p><br/>
His body is bloodied. His face is scratched. Her upper lip is swollen. And Kurapika is crying - a lot. But he does not cry because of the pain of his injuries. He cries of despair - of a divine despair that he cannot change.</p><p><br/>
When Kurapika starts talking about soulmates, Hisoka laughs. He's laughing. Very strong. His icy laugh fills the silence of the night - it's three in the morning, and Kurapika is a victim of the Stars and the Universe. Hisoka understands.</p><p><br/>
So Hisoka laughs at his misfortune. Between his giggles, he lets out some<em> you don’t have any luck in your life, right?</em></p><p><br/>
Kurapika tells him he wants to die while fighting - he says he has to die, because he cannot keep a promise that he is precious to him. Kurapika must die because of the seven figures on his left wrist. Kurapika tells Hisoka that he will win: Kurapika says that his skills are superior to his, and therefore that he will necessarily win.<br/>
And if he wins against Kurapika, then he wins against Chrollo Lucilfer.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika tries to convince Hisoka, with his broken and trembling voice: with his red and very bright eyes - despair and tears and unhappiness.</p><p><br/>
But Hisoka says:</p><p><br/>
- You didn't quite understand me. If Chrollo dies, then it will be with my own hands around his own throat.</p><p><br/>
Hisoka no longer laughs: his voice has regained its seriousness. Kurapika knows he has lost - he has lost everything.</p><p><br/>
When Hisoka walks past him to leave, he says:</p><p><br/>
- But if I were you, I would avoid telling this story to anyone. The brigade has more enemies than you imagine.</p><p><br/>
And Hisoka leaves. And Kurapika is still alive.</p><p><br/>
When he shouldn't - when he doesn't want to.</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>When Hisoka returns to the brigade bench, Chrollo has a book in his hands. Hisoka imagines that this is a story of <em>soulmates</em> impossible to fully understand ; for both of them, they will never know their limits, their powers and their weaknesses. Hisoka knows it. Chrollo must know. Their two souls can never form one if they are too far apart - Chrollo and Kurapika can never understand the word soulmates, if they try to find them both on their own. Their existence is not meant to be individual. One day, perhaps, Hisoka thinks: one day, perhaps they will accept it.</p><p><br/>
But Hisoka doesn't care a bit - he just wants to fight. But for that, Chrollo must be alive - and Kurapika too, now.</p><p><br/>
This is why when Hisoka crosses Chrollo, that night, he whispers, low enough that the others cannot hear him:</p><p><br/>
- He will try to kill himself.</p><p><br/>
There is something shining in Chrollo's eyes - a glow that Hisoka had never seen. He doesn't understand - he's not really trying to understand, because he just wants to be able to fight. Hisoka may be too cold at heart to understand that this is a glimmer of concern.</p><p><br/>
And Chrollo Lucilfer was not afraid of Death.</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>Hisoka was right. Kurapika has long looked at the seven figures on his skin with a kind of rage desperate enough to be the reason for all his misfortune.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika looked at the brand for a long time and he had long stared in the mirror to know that he wanted to die. In the back of his mind, the mother speaks: her soft, tender words rise to remind him of a promise that he should not have made. He cannot change the past and he already knows that he can never keep his promise.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika has experienced a lot of betrayal, but the one that is fatal to him is that of the Stars and the Universe - because it is a double betrayal. He is betrayed and he betrays.<br/>
He is betrayed because he trusted the Stars and the Universe: as a child, he always showed these seven figures with disconcerting pride. He smiled a lot, a lot; when he stroked his blackened skin with his child's fingers - he caressed it gently. He had trusted this rare and precious phenomenon. But it was when Kurapika was eighteen that he realized that this phenomenon was really only preciously tragic.</p><p><br/>
He betrays. Kurapika looked at himself in the mirror for a long time, until he couldn't bear himself any longer - so he managed to look at himself for ten seconds. He betrays his people and he betrays his dead and he betrays his duties and he betrays all the rage of his heart and his body.</p><p><br/>
So Kurapika wants to die - but without these seven figures on his skin. He wants to pass out in the peace of an accomplished conscience: he cannot keep the figures of betrayal on his own body.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika screams in pain when he tears off the small particle of skin from his left wrist with his blade. There is a lot of blood on the bathroom tiles. The smell doesn't bother him – no more, because he got used to it. And that's also why he knows it's time to die.</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>Kurapika is draining his blood from the tub water. He knows he's dying because he sees Chrollo on the doorstep. Maybe he's gone crazy, maybe he's already lost too much blood, maybe it's his spirit that came to haunt him until the end of his days - but then that will be short.</p><p><br/>
He blinks several times. He can no longer open his eyes. He feels like he is leaving - and it may be for the best.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika is eighteen and still has the seven digits on his wrist when he tries to kill himself.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika doesn't know it yet but the seven digits written on his skin and in his soul will never leave him.</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p> </p><p>Kurapika can feel soft kisses on his wet eyelids. Kurapika can feel caresses in his hair and on his cheeks and also on his left wrist.</p><p>Kurapika may be dead, but the tender caresses spread over his body make Death easier to meet.</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika knows he is not dead because everything is too painful.</p><p><br/>
His body, his mind, the air that passes through his lungs, his chest which rises and which rises at the rhythm of his breathing, his body, his left wrist and his thoughts and memories and the presence of Chrollo Lucilfer at his sides when he finally opens his eyes.</p><p><br/>
As soon as he opens his gray eyes, Chrollo looks up from the book on his lap. He still has a blindfold around his forehead - his eyes sparkle with no anger. His black eyes exude disconcerting calm and serenity, due to the existence of his two hands tinged with blood.</p><p><br/>
Chrollo says:</p><p><br/>
- Hello.</p><p><br/>
His voice is soft - but in a way, Kurapika often feels that it‘s always been soft. It’s strange and maybe Kurapika doesn’t necessarily have the strength to understand it today. He lies in the bed of the room he rented last night - when he chose the hotel of his death.</p><p><br/>
-   Don’t do it again, please. It’s painful for me too. I could feel your pain.</p><p>Kurapika would have killed him if he was not injured. He would have got up from this stupid bed so he could stab him with his own hands. He would have stood up to better yell at him how much he hates him and how much he will suffer when he will kills him. Kurapika would have killed him, and he would have killed himself with him. Kurapika would have risen to cry better - to sink deeper into despair than he was already gnawing at.</p><p><br/>
Kurapika is eighteen when he realizes that everything he touches, he ruins - with his hands already bathed in blood. So maybe Kurapika will have to touch him, a lot and a lot: maybe Kurapika will have to touch this Chrollo Lucilfer a thousand times to be able to destroy him.</p><p><br/>
- What is your name ?</p><p><br/>
-  You already know my name.</p><p><br/>
His voice is weaker than he would have liked - it trembles, his throat is dry and he has the impression of having lost the faculty of being able to scream – about how much he hates himself and how much his life was just a succession of woe that dug his own grave.</p><p><br/>
Chrollo smiles. Kurapika wants to kill him.</p><p>-  I would like you to tell me this by yourself.</p><p><br/>
And Kurapika, he wants to kill him.</p><p><br/>
For eighteen years, Kurapika invented the face and the features of these seven figures given by Destiny. Kurapika imagined his soulmate in all its forms. Kurapika was used to feeling him: on his skin, in his heart and in his soul. Sometimes when he was too desperate to be able to breathe, Kurapika felt it. So he slowly stroked his burning left wrist, which pricked him with millions of needles he couldn't see, and Kurapika was whispering tender things, as his mother had taught him. Kurapika was whispering as if he could hear him. His nails ran across his own skin. And maybe he was already mad, and maybe he was just trying to reassure himself by thinking that he was fulfilling his duty - that of protecting his soulmate - but the pain on his left wrist was decreasing, little little by little, until it becomes nonexistent.</p><p><br/>
When Kurapika sees Chrollo at his side, his soft voice and his eyes that sparkle with a certain tenderness that frightens him, Kurapika understands that he has bound himself to the same duty as him - they both promised the same thing.</p><p><br/>
But maybe Kurapika couldn't keep his promise and maybe Chrollo Lucilfer was a man of his word as he had wished so much during his childhood.</p><p><br/>
So in a kind of way, maybe the Stars and the Universe hadn't betrayed him as much as he thought.</p><p><br/>
-  Kurapika.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hi there,</p><p>this story sounded way better in my own mind. to be honest i don't really like it lmao. anyways i'll be glad to see your opinions about it - good or bad.</p><p>take care!!</p><p>ps: i'm really sorry but i don't know how to describe a fight scene lmao</p></blockquote></div></div>
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